03-28-11

New mega cookbook co-author Chris Young will speak at Iowa State April 4

AMES, Iowa -- Chris Young, co-author of "Modernist Cuisine," the new mega cookbook rocking the food world, will speak at Iowa State at 8 p.m. Monday, April 4. His talk, "Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking," will be in the Memorial Union Great Hall. It is part of the university's National Affairs Series on Innovation, and is free and open to the public.

Young co-authored the 2,400-page, six-volume "Modernist Cuisine" with Nathan Myhrvold and Maxime Bilet. The authors and their 20-person team at The Cooking Lab, Bellevue, Wash., have achieved new flavors and textures by using tools such as water baths, homogenizers and centrifuges, and ingredients that include hydrocolloids, emulsifiers and enzymes.

The revolutionary cookbook was featured recently on "The Today Show" and "The Colbert Report." The New Yorker magazine reviewer wrote, "[It] is going to be the definitive reference point for this new cooking for many years to come. There's something exciting about that, and there's a sense of loss in it, too - a little like the nostalgia we feel for the time when the most advanced composers alive wrote tunes that anyone could hum."

Young completed degrees in mathematics and biochemistry at the University of Washington. He left behind his doctoral work for a job as commis (apprentice) chef at one of Seattle's top-rated restaurants and quickly earned a reputation for his ability to apply science and technology in the kitchen.

Opening the experimental kitchen at The Fat Duck near London, Young worked under world-famous chef Heston Blumenthal to oversee development of his most innovative dishes. He also managed the recipe development for the critically acclaimed first and second seasons of "BBC's Perfection: With Heston Blumenthal." Young has written extensively on the science of food and cooking for "The Fat Duck Cookbook," and has published scholarly research in the Journal of Agricultural Chemistry and Food Science.

Young's talk is cosponsored by National Affairs, the Culinary Sciences Club, the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition and the Committee on Lectures, which is funded by the Government of the Student Body. More information on ISU lectures is available at http://www.lectures.iastate.edu, or by calling 515-294-9935.

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